Lying in general is always thought of as a very negative action that is never tolerated or accepted in almost every setting. However, people do lie for different reasons, and parents are no different. For parents, however, excessive and unjustified lying is very critical and has a lot of negative effects on their children and their relationship with them. Parents should always be careful and restrain as much as possible from lying to their children. Parents should evaluate every situation and decide upon that if lying to the child is of a big benefit or acceptable given the child’s social, logical, and psychological state.
It is not ok for parents to lie for many reasons. The first reason is that, parents are the first role models in the life of their children and should not be. Children imitate older people. Children live the first 5 years of their lives mostly surrounded by their parents; therefore parents have a huge influence on children’s habits and behaviors. Parents should always be honest and convincing, they should not use lies for no reasons when talking with their children or with others in front of them. Raising children that values honesty is very beneficial personally, and socially because it teaches them about standing for one’s actions and beliefs. In the article “The Honest Child: How to Teach Honesty”, Mary Can Clay says that: “The best way to teach honesty is to be honest. Avoid lying to your kindergartner, even about difficult subjects such as illness, death, or divorce. Even a 5-year-old can sense the dishonesty in euphemisms about Uncle Ted's drinking habits, for instance.”
The second reason is that some lies that parents invent maybe not convincing for children and subsequently drive the child to think of his parent as a non-reliable source or reference. For example, if a 7 years old child asked his father why they did not go to the amusement park as he was promised and his father